Browsing by Subject "Namibia"

The Khwe San, the residents of Bwabwata National Park (BNP), were hunter-gatherers who used to acquire their food by hunting and collecting veld food in the past. However, they are not allowed to practice their traditional methods anymore due to the status of the park as a national park and the army trying to prevent increased poaching in the bush. Nowadays they are highly dependent on food aid provided by the Namibian government. In addition, small-scale subsistence agriculture is practiced but due to drought and wild animals, harvests are insufficient to meet required food demand on a daily basis. The objective of this research was to investigate gardening opportunities of the Khwe San in the Eastern part of BNP. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 38 respondents and several stakeholders. Four different groups were found which were home gardeners, community gardeners, participants of gardening workshop and non-gardeners. The data were analysed using a thematic content analysis, a SPPS statistic programme and a sustainable rural livelihoods framework. In addition, one positive deviance gardener was selected, and his production methods is described in more detail. The main results highlighted the importance of having gardens. All the respondents indicated that gardening is important or very important in terms of food production and income generation. However, the majority of the residents are willing to have home gardens due to the challenges of community gardens in the past e.g. the lack of cooperation, jealousy and stealing as well as the lack of needed goods. Current challenges are that there are only one or two water sources in each village and the distances from the boreholes to gardens are long, which complicates irrigation. In addition, poor fences and lack of seeds and tools are the major challenges that home gardeners face. Future training should include specific things because the interviews showed that the general gardening knowledge is presented. As a conclusion, the focus of gardening should be on home gardens, not on community gardens due to their challenges. However, in order to make gardening sustainable, several activities need to be addressed, including an active agriculture extension officer for monitoring, training on specific things and seed distribution provided by the government. In addition, the gardening support needs to be aimed to dedicated people who are willing to practice gardening